Style is an important aspect of language, but current analyses of style are not adequate for computational implementations. This thesis presents a system for codifying some of the semantic aspects of style. The way the centre of attention (or focus) changes from sentence to sentence in a paragraph is used to determine which stylistic goals the paragraph satisfies.
I begin by discussing the literature in the areas of text, focus, and style. In the course of this discussion I show that the connection between semantics and style can be examined at the paragraph level. I continue by defining rules (the focus partial ordering) that determine the focus of a sentence on the basis of grammatical role and sentence structure. I then show how the foci of individual sentences can be used to define a pattern that describes how the focus changes or remains the same from sentence to sentence in a paragraph, the pattern of focus. I define the grammar of abstract elements of style, which relates patterns of focus with abstract elements of style, terms that describe style according to three central characteristics: balance, position, and dominance. The grammar of stylistic goals, which relates abstract elements of style with specific stylistic goals such as clarity, is then defined. The resulting semantic stylistic system takes as its input a paragraph of text, and produces as its output the stylistic goals that the paragraph satisfies.
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